


Mad Dogs and Englishmen

by kunterbunt



Category: Highlander - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Possibly Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 19:44:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4718237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kunterbunt/pseuds/kunterbunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two ancient tricksters meet in a deli shop and bond ... to the chagrin of the Avengers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mad Dogs and Englishmen

If you happen to be the oldest living being on the planet (apart from sea sponges, possibly) you need a time-out now and then. The last few decades had been something of a desaster, what with the Watchers, the Hunters, the Horsemen and the bloody Highlander of the blasted Clan MacLeod. So Methos had done the sensible thing, killed off the identity that gave him so much trouble, cut all ties with his former life and disappeared into obscurity.

He’d ended up as the owner of a small deli in Little Italy. The neighborhood was an interesting mixture of old european and melting pot-diversity. Nobody took a second look at an unassuming Brit with wire-rim glasses and a fondness for trench coats. His corner shop was tugged away in a side street, and few customers stumbled in to disturb his peace and quiet. It was his own idea of paradise. 

The smell of dried herbs and spices filled the air, there were sausages hanging from the ceiling and baskets full of exotic fruit on the shelves. If you knew starvation and famine as intimately as him, there was no greater wonder of the modern age than japanese apricots in the middle of winter. 

Methos was his own best customer. He’d installed a little kitchen in the back room where he experimented with ancient recipes and new ingredients. In the four years since he’d opened shop, he’d developed a reputation among gourmets with a sense of adventure. The star cook of Le Voltaire dropped in now and then, ordered a selection of french cheeses and tried to wheedle culinary knowledge out of him. If Methos felt charitable, he wrote down something he remembered from places like Persia or the Minoan court. It was a shame that quail eggs in honeyed wine had gone out of style. 

He was puttering around with a delivery of snails one fine afternoon when an explosion made the chinaware clank and the windows rattle. On pure instinct he dove behind the counter where he’d hidden his sword, but forced himself to relax when he saw the unmistakeable color scheme of Tony Stark flash by his shop window. 

So, this was just another Avengers scuffle. They were an annoying fact of New York life, much like overcrowded subway trains and bad street musicians. 

Methos positioned himself behind the shop window and watched the show. Iron Man hurtled through the street in a crazy zigzag-pattern to avoid the flash bombs somebody threw at him from higher up. 

Although at a closer look they weren’t bombs but … rubber superballs? There were quite a lot of them in every color of the rainbow, ricocheting off the walls, bobbing up and down and bouncing in trajectories that shouldn’t be possible. A whole swarm seemed to follow Iron Man around like puppies. They changed path in mid-air and jumped five stories high to get at their target. Whenever Stark didn’t dodge fast enough and bumped into one of them, the ball exploded in a cartoonish firework of sparks. They packed quite a punch to judge by the way the armor was dented in several places. 

Methos had a good idea who the villain of the day had to be. The mixture of screwball playfulness and lethal force had become something of a trademark ... 

Sure enough, some minutes later the rest of the Avengers appeared on scene and Thor bellowed “Loki!!” up towards the sky. His thunderous voice made the buildings shake. He sounded more exasperated than angry, though, and got a peal of laughter in response. 

Methos grinned in delight. To see Loki in action was a rare treat. He’d always had a weakness for tricksters and had played that role himself once or twice throughout history. (In his personal opinion, it was a lot more fun than being a god of death.) Apart from that, the Asgardian was easy on the eye. Methos had had a thing for bad boys in leather armor ever since ... well, since the horsemen. 

In front of the window, Loki had been forced to join battle with two Avengers at once and got slowly backed into a corner. His brother swung his war hammer, while Hawkeye shot special effect-arrows from a balcony. The situation didn’t look too hopeful for the trickster, even if he fought back ferociously with all the magic up his sleeve. He threw illusions right and left, but Thor ignored the attacking horde of fire demons and waded through Loki-doubles like they didn’t even exist.

Methos tried to remember where he’d put the packages of cinnamon popcorn to go with the show, when the situation took an unexpected turn. A small, furry shape streaked in through his half open door, cast a swift look around and vanished behind the cake display. Methos cocked his head in thought. Looked like he had no choice but to get involved. If he wasn’t mistaken, that had been a _gårdshund_ , a terrier breed which could be traced back all the way to the vikings. 

Before he could decide what to do about the intruder, the door flew open with a crash. Thor marched in, red cape billowing. Blond hair blew around his chiseled face, his massive bulk seemed to fill the whole shop and his head almost collided with one of the truffle salamis. Methos wasn’t impressed. 

He quickly hid that reaction, though. It would have clashed with his current personality. Theodore Finchley was a harmless recluse who wore tweed to work. He wouldn’t get in the face of a norse god. 

Instead, he stumbled back nervously and collided with the bottles of french wine which stood arranged on a table. One of them toppled to the floor, hit the tiles and smashed into a thousand bits. 

Methos froze with a deer in headlights expression. He stared at the puddle of very expensive liquid with all the melodrama he could muster. “But … but that was a 1959 Bordeaux”, he mumbled, hands flapping. He lifted his eyes up (and up … and up …) and his look of reproach stopped the god in his tracks. 

The big blonde actually blushed. “My apologies, good merchant”, he said. “I did not intend to frighten you.” 

Methos crossed his arms, raised his chin and attempted a half-hearted glare. “Well, you did. You came barging in here like a … a demolition crew. Do you know how much that bottle was worth to a true connoisseur?”

Before Thor could answer, another voice rang out from behind his armored shoulder. 

“Hey, those fruit look like they were designed by Hello Kitty", Tony Stark declared. "Can food actually have that color? Gross. What the hell are they? I want some.” He looked around Thor at the bright pink, bubbly shapes in a china bowl.

“Uh, those are water love apples from Thailand”, Methos explained, nervously pushing up his glasses. “They are often used as gifts, because their smell and taste reminds people of roses. I would be honored to personally deliver them to Stark Tower, Sir.”

“Yeah, that would be grand. I never got Pepper an edible rose bouquet before, that's got to go over better than the strawberries. You haven’t seen a dog in here by any chance? About this big …” Stark gestured with his hands. “Nasty little bugger?” 

Methos shook his head. “A dog? Certainly not. I’m quite strict about pets, in fact, even with my regular customers. Wouldn’t want any teeth prints in the kobe beef.” He gave a tentative smile.

“Hm, yeah. Just an idea.” Stark shrugged and turned around. “We’ll be off then. Things to do, places to be, gods of mischief to hunt.” He gave a little farewell wave and rose into the sky. Thor followed with a dramatic swirl of his cape, like the picture book hero he was. 

Methos leaned against the door frame and and watched them go. “Well, that was different”, he said. His eyes unerringly found the spot where a furry nose appeared behind the chococlate-macadamia cake. “Your brother really is the blonde in the family, hm?”

The _gårdshund_ gave a sneeze that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. Then the nose vanished for a moment and when it appeared again, it pushed Methos’ Ivanhoe sword across the floor. The dog lifted an eloquent eyebrow and waited for an explanation.

Methos shrugged. “Comes in handy sometimes. The neighborhood isn’t what it used to be.”

The dog huffed. Methos pointed a thumb towards the window where now and then an Avenger came into view on the roof tops, still looking for the missing trickster. “There’s all kinds of trouble about nowadays. By the way, if _you_ intend to become a nuisance, I know a recipe for dog with chopped lotus stalks.”

His canine guest gave a wide jawn, unimpressed by the threat, and curled up on the floor to wait the manhunt out. With a shrug Methos went back to his work that had been interrupted in such an unexpected fashion. Snails were best prepared with hemp seed butter and he had herbs to chop. Now and then he threw a piece of chorizo sausage to the dog, which was graciously accepted.

Methos wasn’t exactly happy with Loki’s attempt at world domination, that had left parts of his deli covered in alien goo (not to mention severed heads), but he was hardly in a position to judge anyone. And the god on the run looked like he could use some feeding up. 

\-------------------

The gårdshund turned into a regular guest after that, either lured in by the top quality of the chorizo or by the laid-back attitude that came with the food. Anyway, Methos didn’t mind. Divine visitations added a certain spice to the simple life he’d chosen. 

The neighbors got used to seeing Mr Finchley stay after closing time and smiled when they passed the shop window and its homey scene: the light of a small reading lamp and a not-so-young-man with a book and a dog in his lap. He stroked the animal’s fur in an absent minded way. His companion listened attentively to a paperback with the title _Small Gods_. 

Sometimes the dog seemed to argue. But of course that had to be a trick of the light.

**Author's Note:**

> "Small Gods" by Terry Pratchett is a sharply funny book about religion, war mongering and humanism. It's one of the wittiest literary masterpieces I've ever read. 
> 
> Just in case I passed my Methos addiction on to you, here’s my Top 10 list of HL-stories: 
> 
> Teresa_C: "Darling Boy” (posted on AO3)
> 
> merriman: “A Routine Operation” (HL/Avengers; AO3)
> 
> MarbleGlove: “A Square Peg in a Round Hole” (HL/SG1; AO3)
> 
> Sholio: "Lemmings” (AO3)
> 
> macgeorge: “Social Graces”; http://www.hlfiction.net/viewuser.php?uid=29
> 
> Basingstoke: "Bride Price” (AO3)
> 
> Silviavolk2000: "Lost Horizon” (AO3)
> 
> Maya: “Relics” (HL/Relic Hunter); https://www.fanfiction.net/s/45242/1/Relics
> 
> Jill: “ROG on Vacation” (HL/LOTR); https://www.fanfiction.net/s/803615/1/ROG_on_Vacation
> 
> sprl1199: "Hot Space” (AO3)


End file.
